As good as Craig Jones is at BJJ, he might be an even better promoter. He promoted the hell out of it and his personality and sense of humor made his videos must see events.
@OHBJJ9634 just depends. I only have so much time to work on a single video. This is my full time job, and I need to balance how often I’m able to put out new videos.
"mockery of this sport" this almost biblical focus on what bjj is supposed to be is why its been considered the dork martial art for a long time now cji made it fun and cool
Craig absolutely crushed it. I was shocked at how great the production standards were, the athletes did their part putting on fantastic matches, and all for a fantastic cause (Akademi Kristus in Bali.) I think this will be his legacy, long after people have forgotten how good a grappler he was. He actually gave back to the sport and helped people in need.
@@yeahok1839we also know it would look bad if he came out and said he did it because people don't like zuck. Whereas there is no reason a Saudi prince wouldn't want their name on it.
When Craig first said the donar was over seas my first throught was Saudi Prince or something, but thinking about ADCC’a funding, i think it less likely that you would have two princes going against one another. Might be a crypto guy in Europe or Asia…
I honestly disagree. I enjoyed ADCC much more. It was super cheesy from the promotion to the event. Call me old school or even boring but not everything has to be americanized like WWF.
I have recently gotten into watching MMA I always thought grappling was too boring to watch. I saw what Craig jones was doing not only going against Gabi but also starting his own event and paying a million to the winners. And on top of it all it was free on TH-cam. I promise you I’m not missing another CJI after how good this event was.
the only "boring" part in the CJI was how Levi just immediately pulls guard within the start of the round and wipes his ass on the floor every damn time, but again, I didnt find it boring as it was his style, and it was feckin effective.
Gabi had many haters, CJI converted those and showed that Gabi is just a competitor who used available and "sanctioned" resources just to get the dub. She doesnt deserve all those hate, and Gabi got the admiration and respect of everyone who watched CJI. and her passing the ADCC hall of fame for CJI , that one was badass!
Craig has said many times that matches should be 15min long, cuz even if the match is boring, at least it's just 15 minutes instead of an hour or whatever. And also if it's only 15 min, it means that it's more likely that fans would get a faster paced and much more entertaining match. This event showed that perfectly.
Andrew Tackett getting 3 years worth of adcc 1st place earnings by losing says a lot not to mention actual marketability that he can sell since all the matches are up for free and anyone with internet can access it with just a search
It definitely worked, I casually keep up with MMA. Now I look forward to everything B team puts out. It's the content, he found a way to make it interesting to casual mainstream people. The documentary in Japan was great, you got to see the personalities behind the sport.
Been doing striking combat sports for some years now and got myself into bjj for a little bit but never really enjoyed it. CJI and b team are literally making me wanna go back into bjj
Amazing video, I was wondering what the hype was about as I'm not into watching BJJ and this explained it perfectly and made me consider checking it out. Thanks
It was first shown there's gonna be things to tweak and learn from, I'm sure they will continue to improve and solve any issues that come up, it's hard to make Jiu jitsu action packed and they did a pretty good job, kade shouldnt be forced to engage on with some one pulling guard but at the same time he was just frustrated that he could barely get anything going againg Levi Leary
I would never watch Jits or Grappling until I saw the CJI - I watched both days only stopping for the UFC Main Event ... The Jitz Grappling snobs need to get real, Craig Jones crazy marketing and the excellent fighters and rules/pit set up were awesome ... I will always come back and even pay to watch this event !
I'm glad that the vast majority of people are in support of the CJI despite the naysayrs supporting the ADCC. Competition breeds innovation and the ADCC has grown stagnant. For a first event this knocked it out of the park and subsequent ones can only get better if the same production value and cash prizes are brought in. I agree that some rules might need to be altered and bringing in a women's bracket would really open this up to 3-4 days which again I'm fully in support of. I think of the things a lot of people are overlooking is that this was a charity event as well which deserves praise.
Superb event. (CGi 5:16 ). If I had to find one thing to improve, I’d say to be careful with the irreverent and hyper sarcastic/sexual innuendo type pre-marketing. (I’m just a bit old and over that style). But what a superb event.
That’s awesome! I use DaVinci for everything, and I do all my animation in Fusion. Hit me up in the IG DMs @joshbeambjj and we can chat more about it! (Easier than TH-cam comments)
I think regardless of what happens with the funding, or the scheduling, one thing CJI has undoubtedly changed forever is the slanted walls arena. If Jiu-Jitsu tournaments don't start implementing that right away, what are they even doing. It's sad that the rivalry between the two organizations means that ADCC won't be humble enough to adopt this clearly superior setup.
I’m a filthy casual but on my way out of town for a work trip I ended up on a plane with some guys that had on a bunch of CJI gear. I freaked out a little. Even text my girl I saw some grapplers on the way out of town.
I love how you have to scramble and find 1 or 2 negative comments from absolute melts on the internet to find negative points this has been 99.99999% positive. OFCOURSE Gordon is going to say something negative. If this happens in two years time imagine how few people are going to compete in AD/CC. Why would they. AD/CC won’t change the pay brackets because they will have to openly admit it’s because of Craig. Honestly I’d Pay 10 dollars towards finding CJI it was worth that and More. If every viewer even paid 1 dollar it could self fund
If you think about it. verything in the CJI looks like Eddie Bravo Invitational, but bigger. It just makes sence that Joe Rogan is the money man behind it.
Compared to watching adcc and other grappling matches, this felt like proper combat sport and fights. Adcc just felt like a slightly higher budget local tournament with better fighters, but the whole feel didn’t bring in much of an upgrade imo
Mitch 'Mitty' Burgees Craig's long time friend and owner of the luxury eyewear brand 'Oscar & Frank'. He was also present at the event and in some of the lead up promo for cji on the b team yt chanel. I agree it has to be him! Side note: there is an el segundo episode featuring Mitch off his face at his villa in Bali 😂
I think it has a good chance of being sustainable despite it losing loads of money. I'd be surprised if there weren't people throwing money at him to put on another one already
How did Craig manage to get so much funding for paying athletes, charity and stuff? I'd really appreciate it if someone could give a reply. Was there a sponsor or something? Because it seems crazy to me that, even though it's Craig Jones, a NEW grappling comp could have more prize money than the most established comp in the world, ADCC.
CJI smashes 'Powerslap' and also grappling of any sort in a ring, on a mat or in a cage. Wonder if the naysayers (and New Wave) actually appreciate how many additional eyes are now brought to grappling (BJJ, Judo and (real) Wrestling).....
Not really, New wave got extremely good at using the ADCC ruleset. How can Gordon beat Nicky Rod at CJI? Jay Rod would also beat Giancarlo at CJI ruleset. CJI greatly emphasises athleticism and is very hard for a slow systematic approach. If CJI became a pinnacle of BJJ it would be a huge problem for New Wave.
If there’s a second one or not his point was proven. It was a success. The ssc started paying fighters show money and the women got a bump. So even if it’s only a one time thing the tournament did exactly what it was designed for athlete wise and raised some money for charities. Hopefully it showed you have to have the biggest tournaments on the “ally” from now on. So much better. Way more action.
The idea behind it is that they don't make money off of it and instead the money they do make from tickets, merchandise , ect goes back towards charity. They also aimed to run the event with lower cost's than ADCC whilst maintaining high product to put the rest of the money towards compensating the athletes with what they deserve, unlike ADCC. The event is sponsored by someone from Saudi Arabia who doesn't mind throwing this type of money towards a non-profit as long as people watched it. TLDR: Grappling event sponsored by rich dude, that pays the athletes well and will continue to do so as long as people watch.
I loved CJI. And In my opinion, you don’t need to water BJJ down by ”punishing” guard players just to make it exciting for everyone. Pass their damn guard instead of complaining. 😅
The only thing I think CJI has left to do is to create some rule that pretty harshly punishes butt scooting unless you have absolutely vicious offense.
It reminds me of Elon Musk trying to send plant to mars just so that NASA resume the project and it ended up as best rocket company more capable than Nasa , So may be it could become bigger and better than what we currently have and thta is poor .
As good as Craig Jones is at BJJ, he might be an even better promoter. He promoted the hell out of it and his personality and sense of humor made his videos must see events.
Back in the day people would go on media tours on radio stations. Now it’s podcast
One aspect you missed was the respect shown to Gabi for passing on ADCC Hall of fame for this.
Gabi is cool af
Yeah I was gonna include that bit in there and ended up cutting it for time
@@joshbeambjj why not make longer videos?
@OHBJJ9634 just depends. I only have so much time to work on a single video. This is my full time job, and I need to balance how often I’m able to put out new videos.
@@joshbeambjjthats a pretty short thing to add and such a sacrifice deserves recognition in my opinion
"mockery of this sport" this almost biblical focus on what bjj is supposed to be is why its been considered the dork martial art for a long time now cji made it fun and cool
Agreed
Lmaooo this CJI alone will draw in multiple sponsors for future ones. Brilliant marketing genius Craig Jones is
Yeah exactly. Just cuz it was run this was the first time doesn’t mean it has to be that way forever
The sponsors with it being on TH-cam alone is worth millions.
Craig absolutely crushed it. I was shocked at how great the production standards were, the athletes did their part putting on fantastic matches, and all for a fantastic cause (Akademi Kristus in Bali.) I think this will be his legacy, long after people have forgotten how good a grappler he was. He actually gave back to the sport and helped people in need.
Agreed
Mate opening a overpriced gym in Bali is the easiest thing to do
@@G.I_Jane B team has a video on that gym I suggest you watch it before commenting. Its called "Craig Jones Visits Bali Slums & Jiujitsu Orphanage."
Mark zuck is definitely the funding.. dude can do this more and more also while bringing in sponsors..
Doubt it. Too many hints dropped that its outside of the USA
@@yeahok1839hints can also be red hearings and we know zuck has been very close with the Australian boys
@@yeahok1839we also know it would look bad if he came out and said he did it because people don't like zuck. Whereas there is no reason a Saudi prince wouldn't want their name on it.
When Craig first said the donar was over seas my first throught was Saudi Prince or something, but thinking about ADCC’a funding, i think it less likely that you would have two princes going against one another. Might be a crypto guy in Europe or Asia…
This is the only BJJ tournament I have ever watched live. That's probably the biggest endorsement I can give it.
Biggest difference is how it just made Jujitsu so much fucken FUN
I honestly disagree. I enjoyed ADCC much more. It was super cheesy from the promotion to the event. Call me old school or even boring but not everything has to be americanized like WWF.
@@faubourglincoln you really are old school... you're still calling it WWF lmao
I have recently gotten into watching MMA I always thought grappling was too boring to watch. I saw what Craig jones was doing not only going against Gabi but also starting his own event and paying a million to the winners. And on top of it all it was free on TH-cam. I promise you I’m not missing another CJI after how good this event was.
the only "boring" part in the CJI was how Levi just immediately pulls guard within the start of the round and wipes his ass on the floor every damn time, but again, I didnt find it boring as it was his style, and it was feckin effective.
Gabi had many haters, CJI converted those and showed that Gabi is just a competitor who used available and "sanctioned" resources just to get the dub. She doesnt deserve all those hate, and Gabi got the admiration and respect of everyone who watched CJI. and her passing the ADCC hall of fame for CJI , that one was badass!
I loved CJI, and the interview, with Craig and Gabi, moderated by esteemed mediator Renato Laranja, was PPV worthy.
Lol agreed
renato laranja became cringe in the later part, and i found it annoying.
I really enjoyed CJI so much, I hope this continues. It was so much fun, the energy was incredible and I never felt bored.
Craig has said many times that matches should be 15min long, cuz even if the match is boring, at least it's just 15 minutes instead of an hour or whatever. And also if it's only 15 min, it means that it's more likely that fans would get a faster paced and much more entertaining match.
This event showed that perfectly.
Andrew Tackett getting 3 years worth of adcc 1st place earnings by losing says a lot not to mention actual marketability that he can sell since all the matches are up for free and anyone with internet can access it with just a search
Never watched it before, now I'm hooked ❤
CJI was the first time I've had fun watching grappling. It actually gave me a second wind for training.
Great high-quality coverage, and well-worded to be accessible to the uninitiated. Definitely earned a sub!
Awesome to see FLO out of the picture.
I've got no criticisms whatsoever surrounding the marketing or the production.
100% tuning in next year!
It definitely worked, I casually keep up with MMA. Now I look forward to everything B team puts out. It's the content, he found a way to make it interesting to casual mainstream people. The documentary in Japan was great, you got to see the personalities behind the sport.
Been doing striking combat sports for some years now and got myself into bjj for a little bit but never really enjoyed it. CJI and b team are literally making me wanna go back into bjj
I really hope we get another one. This was awesome. I watched the whole event.
Such a great event, I was so so surprised at its quality and the matches! THE MATCHES! were all great!
Amazing video, I was wondering what the hype was about as I'm not into watching BJJ and this explained it perfectly and made me consider checking it out. Thanks
I loved it .
Especially the writing by a winner of a bout on the board publicly.
great review of the CJI. Thank you
Great video, you really summed it up
glad you liked it, thanks for watching!
CJI was the first BJJ event me and the boys actually watched lmao
Was non stop laughs
Makes me wanna compete even with a previous injury now it's worth it
CJI was so sick. Looking forward to way more of it
It was first shown there's gonna be things to tweak and learn from, I'm sure they will continue to improve and solve any issues that come up, it's hard to make Jiu jitsu action packed and they did a pretty good job, kade shouldnt be forced to engage on with some one pulling guard but at the same time he was just frustrated that he could barely get anything going againg Levi Leary
the first time i've ever sat through a full grappling event!
Same!
I attended both. Very different events. Both were great. If ADCC pays athletes more, I'll keep attending both.
great video
Glad you enjoyed it
I need CJI 2 already
This was excellent.
Thanks for watching!
HISTORIC WEEKEND AND I WAS THERE!!!!
Craig just gave so many people professional careers
I would never watch Jits or Grappling until I saw the CJI - I watched both days only stopping for the UFC Main Event ... The Jitz Grappling snobs need to get real, Craig Jones crazy marketing and the excellent fighters and rules/pit set up were awesome ... I will always come back and even pay to watch this event !
I'm glad that the vast majority of people are in support of the CJI despite the naysayrs supporting the ADCC. Competition breeds innovation and the ADCC has grown stagnant. For a first event this knocked it out of the park and subsequent ones can only get better if the same production value and cash prizes are brought in. I agree that some rules might need to be altered and bringing in a women's bracket would really open this up to 3-4 days which again I'm fully in support of. I think of the things a lot of people are overlooking is that this was a charity event as well which deserves praise.
I started jiu jitsu about 2 months ago (two weeks after I learned about the cji and who Craig jones was lol)
Great video!🤝
Glad you liked it!
ADCC is going to have to up the prize or CJI will take over. I like the CJI format much better.
Nicky rods black belt slayer vid got me in to the sport
Well made
it's going to go big big big
Superb event. (CGi 5:16 ). If I had to find one thing to improve, I’d say to be careful with the irreverent and hyper sarcastic/sexual innuendo type pre-marketing. (I’m just a bit old and over that style).
But what a superb event.
Yeah I’m kinda with you on that. It worked to get eyes on the event, but imho it felt like a little.. much
I hope they make CJI a semi annual thing
You say Craig not Cregg like rest of N.America .Well done .
Hats off to the editor. Well done
It was me! Thank you
@@joshbeambjj Awesome. Pacing and storytelling were great. Did you do the graphics as well? Those were strong
Appreciate the feedback 🙏 yup everything in the video is me
@@joshbeambjj Which programs did you use for graphics? I'm also a video editor and would like to up my game
That’s awesome! I use DaVinci for everything, and I do all my animation in Fusion. Hit me up in the IG DMs @joshbeambjj and we can chat more about it! (Easier than TH-cam comments)
One thing you missed was the fact that the judges where actual experts, ( unlike in the ufc) there where former world champions judging the fights
I think regardless of what happens with the funding, or the scheduling, one thing CJI has undoubtedly changed forever is the slanted walls arena. If Jiu-Jitsu tournaments don't start implementing that right away, what are they even doing. It's sad that the rivalry between the two organizations means that ADCC won't be humble enough to adopt this clearly superior setup.
I’m a filthy casual but on my way out of town for a work trip I ended up on a plane with some guys that had on a bunch of CJI gear. I freaked out a little. Even text my girl I saw some grapplers on the way out of town.
I wanna start doing Jits nowww🥋
CJI is the only jujitsu shows I’ve ever been glued to, besides watching adesanya on UFC
I love how you have to scramble and find 1 or 2 negative comments from absolute melts on the internet to find negative points this has been 99.99999% positive.
OFCOURSE Gordon is going to say something negative.
If this happens in two years time imagine how few people are going to compete in AD/CC.
Why would they.
AD/CC won’t change the pay brackets because they will have to openly admit it’s because of Craig.
Honestly I’d Pay 10 dollars towards finding CJI it was worth that and More.
If every viewer even paid 1 dollar it could self fund
Lol yea it seems like most people were in favor of it
Welcome to the future
If you think about it. verything in the CJI looks like Eddie Bravo Invitational, but bigger. It just makes sence that Joe Rogan is the money man behind it.
🔥
Love or hate, CJ did more for the sport with this one event, than IBJJF and ADCC combined in the past 10 years
I don’t even care about the ADCC. I’ll watch Gordon Ryan clips a year later when FloGrappling releases it for free.
Look at the empty seats at ADCC.
Anyone look into the rumors of Zuck being one of the main benefactors for CJI?
Compared to watching adcc and other grappling matches, this felt like proper combat sport and fights. Adcc just felt like a slightly higher budget local tournament with better fighters, but the whole feel didn’t bring in much of an upgrade imo
What song is playing in the video’s background?
Did they get rid of butt scooting??? Hopefully 🙏
Oscar and Frank CEO. Think about it... He HAS to be the funder
Oscar and Frank?
Mitch 'Mitty' Burgees
Craig's long time friend and owner of the luxury eyewear brand 'Oscar & Frank'.
He was also present at the event and in some of the lead up promo for cji on the b team yt chanel. I agree it has to be him!
Side note: there is an el segundo episode featuring Mitch off his face at his villa in Bali 😂
Interesting! I only saw him recently on Craig’s Instagram, but this theory could def make sense…
the downplay comments i read on other videos was sickening
Im curious to know if it was profitable tbh
I think it has a good chance of being sustainable despite it losing loads of money. I'd be surprised if there weren't people throwing money at him to put on another one already
always thought BJJ was complicated and somewhat gatekept. craigs personality drew me in and made me interested in watching the sport
Even if I wanted to pay for Flograppling, adcc is just boring. Mo is stuck in the dark ages
RIP ADCC ☠️
How did Craig manage to get so much funding for paying athletes, charity and stuff? I'd really appreciate it if someone could give a reply. Was there a sponsor or something? Because it seems crazy to me that, even though it's Craig Jones, a NEW grappling comp could have more prize money than the most established comp in the world, ADCC.
Yeah there was a sponsor but he still hasn’t revealed who it is yet
This is Doubled down with the Fact ADCC stands for Abu Dhabi Combat Club and is backed by literal Billionaire Saudi's
CJI smashes 'Powerslap' and also grappling of any sort in a ring, on a mat or in a cage.
Wonder if the naysayers (and New Wave) actually appreciate how many additional eyes are now brought to grappling (BJJ, Judo and (real) Wrestling).....
Not really, New wave got extremely good at using the ADCC ruleset. How can Gordon beat Nicky Rod at CJI? Jay Rod would also beat Giancarlo at CJI ruleset. CJI greatly emphasises athleticism and is very hard for a slow systematic approach. If CJI became a pinnacle of BJJ it would be a huge problem for New Wave.
🎉
Craig looking like my old club penguin character in the thumbnail
💀💀
Gordon loves Gordon... Craig done more for the sport in a than any1
All the refs wearing the Ray Bumps HAHAHAH
Im big cjl fight combine mma ufc hall of fame fighter
If there’s a second one or not his point was proven. It was a success. The ssc started paying fighters show money and the women got a bump. So even if it’s only a one time thing the tournament did exactly what it was designed for athlete wise and raised some money for charities.
Hopefully it showed you have to have the biggest tournaments on the “ally” from now on. So much better. Way more action.
Only Craig Jones would think of overspending against an organization created by an oil scion.
I know you mentioned it but did they make money? Is it sustainable?
The idea behind it is that they don't make money off of it and instead the money they do make from tickets, merchandise , ect goes back towards charity. They also aimed to run the event with lower cost's than ADCC whilst maintaining high product to put the rest of the money towards compensating the athletes with what they deserve, unlike ADCC. The event is sponsored by someone from Saudi Arabia who doesn't mind throwing this type of money towards a non-profit as long as people watched it.
TLDR: Grappling event sponsored by rich dude, that pays the athletes well and will continue to do so as long as people watch.
It did, and it is.
@@xandr13 where? ADCC has never been profitable either from my knowledge.
Realy hope ADCC goes under😂
Honestly the biggest thing was the inclusion of wrestling and penalizing of passivity. People like seeing throws, not guard pulling
1.25x is a must for this one
I have become Danaher
I loved CJI.
And In my opinion, you don’t need to water BJJ down by ”punishing” guard players just to make it exciting for everyone.
Pass their damn guard instead of complaining. 😅
It's easy the sponsor is that K1 Asian owner it's the same stage/arena
Gordon Ryan crying lol😂
The cash backer is Joe Rogan!
gordan is a salty pice of work😂😂😂
did they not do a trick to get the views they did though? it seemed that way
I enjoyed CJI but final fight for -80 devision wasn't excited
Agree
Lol the Japanese are known for having combat fight freak shows.
I think it’s premature to call it genius if it can’t sustain itself
The criticisms of CJI were very minor tbh.
The only thing I think CJI has left to do is to create some rule that pretty harshly punishes butt scooting unless you have absolutely vicious offense.
Yeah that’d be cool
It reminds me of Elon Musk trying to send plant to mars just so that NASA resume the project and it ended up as best rocket company more capable than Nasa , So may be it could become bigger and better than what we currently have and thta is poor .
Gordon Ryan is seething that he can’t make BJJ cool like Craig
All the juice in the world won’t make you happy Gordon
It took a rich man and karate to fix bjj
complaining about bottom positions as a Ruotolo that couldnt pass learys guard is lame